The prince of martyrs

What can we write of the Imam that has not been said before? What praise can be offered to him, what facet of his life recounted, that the sands of Karbala do not attest to already?

What word exists that may encompass the grief that comes with his memory — the twisting of our hearts, the stilling of our tongues, the trembling of our hands, the bubbling forth of tears that cannot be stopped any more than the storm can be reasoned with?

How do we describe the valour of the son of Imam Ali, who knew the fate that was to befall him and strode forth regardless? Riders came bearing oaths till Hussain’s satchels overflowed with letters promising fealty. Then came riders with knowledge of the deception that had already taken place. The fear that had cowed the Kufans into base treachery found no purchase on the Messenger’s grandson. Fate would not have to run after him, he would meet it head-on.

How do we describe the helpless anger that comes when Qasim’s name is uttered? Did the sky weep when he ventured out to meet Shimr’s dogs in single combat, knowing that for a brief moment, Hasan was with Hussain once more, that Hasan’s stalwartness and bravery shielded his brother from harm one last time through his son?

What of our rage at hearing Abbas’ last moments? How must he have felt hearing Hussain’s children cry for want of water? Did not the Father of Virtue rush to their aid, heedless of what the enemy would do to him? One against many, refusing death’s call till they had taken both his arms. So long as the white-plumed helm lay on his head, so long as he could grasp the hilt of his sword with but one hand, the enemy could not advance.

Or of Ali Akbar’s, who must have burned with the moon’s radiance once he determined he would only return to his Lord if he fell on the field of battle. Did they not shudder at harming the one who so greatly resembled his blessed forefather? Did the enemy not know the boy they fought would soon be reunited with the Prophet (pbuh) hey claimed to love? How could the Euphrates have dared quench Ali Akbar’s thirst when, soon, it would be his great-grandfather’s hands lifting water to his parched lips from the Hawz-e-Kausar.

And of Hussain’s grief at seeing him fall, what else can be said but that our soul weeps at the thought of the father cradling the son’s bloodied form? It weeps and weeps, till it is subsumed by our grief at Ali Asghar’s fate, murdered in infancy in the arms of his father. An arrow shot at the neck of an infant too young to even understand what had just taken place. What must have Hussain thought once this darkest of barbarities had descended, his son’s life taken mere months after it had begun by the very people he wished to save from slavery?

When Hussain dons the white, a shroud in all but name, that vast ocean of grief becomes unbearable. It presses down on our shoulders with a tangible weight. It doesn’t demand submission, but instead reaches its hands out and asks that the last chains of reason be sundered from our emotions. It asks, and so it is.

Hussain mounts Zuljanah – his last companion on that most accursed of days – and strides forth to meet the enemy. The whispers of destiny that have called out to him are now more akin to an overwhelming roar. Hussain does not shy from it. He meets it as his brother did, as his father did – with grace, poise, and faith. Lines of archers fire at him, volleys of arrows descend upon him, but he does not break stride, does not retreat.

There, then, as Zuljanah approaches and a cloud of dust rises behind it, the enemy is reminded of Ali, whom the Prophet (pbuh) had once lovingly called Abu Turab, the Father of Dust. And when the Imam is upon them, they find themselves scattered about by the sheer force behind the barest swing of his sword.

Hussain is not raised as a warrior, but in his blood sings the same strength that empowered Ali to tear down Khyber’s gate and use it as a shield. The animals that likened themselves to wolves realize all too late that they are but sheep before the son of the Lion of God. Hussain presses forward, one against thousands. For the first time since they had begun the massacre, the tyrant’s forces know fear. They see death approaching and flee.

It will not last. The mind knows, just as the soul hopes.

Shimr’s screams and insults run his throat dry, and at last he harries his troops to attack. The spell that Hussain’s sheer force of will has cast upon them breaks. An arrow pierces Hussain’s shoulder, and before a thousand wilting enemies, he is thrown from his loyal mount. They have lived as dogs, and they now advance as dogs, striking him with blades and swords and daggers. White cloth is now tainted with screaming, horrid red.

But Shimr is not satisfied. The tyrant’s mind cannot accept Hussain’s dignity even as death claims his life, and so the horses are made to trample over his fallen body, over and over till the white of his shroud is hardly visible. The last of the People of the Cloak, whom the Prophet (pbuh) had so lovingly called the people of his house, lies defiled even in death, driven deeper into Karbala’s sands under hoof and foot.

There is rage, there is grief, there is helplessness, but the night never bleeds us of faith, for though it was Hussain who bled on the sands that day, it was never him who tasted defeat. It was his enemies – Yazid and Shimr and Ubaydullah and countless others – whose legacy came undone in what they thought to be their greatest moment of triumph.

The Imam’s strength did not come from this world, so why should his victory have been rooted solely in the world that was? When the last drop of blood left Hussain’s veins, the greater victory had already been won. It could not have been any other way, for such was willed by the Architect of Fate. The grandson of the Prophet (pbuh) became the Prince of Martyrs, and in becoming so, his message, the values he represented, the truth he fought for, bled for, sacrificed for, lost his life for, grew ever stronger.

Hussain lives on. His grief is our grief. His strength is our strength. His love is our love. Hussain is there to be found in every smile that crosses the faces of the weary. He is present in every act that denies the tyrant – from the softest of words to the greatest of blows.

Hussain walks with us when we refuse to be cowed by the powers of this world, and it is his footsteps in which we tread when we stand against injustice. Hussain smiles when we understand that the first defeat tyranny must suffer wheresoever it overreaches is that of the strengthening of our own convictions – that all force belonging to the mundane world invariably withers, that our actions should not solely be informed by whether they will succeed but by whether they are right, and that upholding the truth is a victory of its own.

And so, Hussain was, and Hussain is.

The writer is a student of law at King’s College London. He can be reached at: salar.rashid@kcl.ac.uk